


Strange Highways

by verhalen



Series: Northern Lights [22]
Category: Multi-Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, Worldweavers - Multiverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Australia, Biracial Character, Birthday Party, Character(s) of Color, Feisty Fëanorions, Interracial Relationship, Maglor's Descendants, Major Character of Color, Multiracial Children, One Shot, Original Character(s), Parenthood, Racism, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 17:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19750195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen
Summary: In Australia in late 2020, Ali Jonsson is reluctant to go on her latest driving assignment, until people piss her off.Set in theNorthern Lightsuniverse (Silmarillion/Star Wars AU fusion set in modern Earth), this is a one-shot companion piece toFlames of Eternity. Probably won't make sense if you haven't at least readChains of Eternityfirst.





	Strange Highways

**December 2020**  
_Adelaide, Australia_  
  
"Mmmmf." Ali squinted against the light streaming in, dappled across her sable skin. Mornings were earlier now. She was not a morning person. She didn't care much for hot weather, either, and it was already 22 C and early.  
  
Her boyfriend, Kenny, very much was a morning person and a lover of Australian summers. He smiled at her and kissed the tip of her nose. "Hey, gorgeous."  
  
"Mrrrfff." She kissed his nose back.  
  
Kenny laughed. "I love you too."  
  
"Yeh." Ali made a noise into the pillow. "Seriously, _fuck_ summer." She did her best impression of Gollum. "Summerses, we hates them, precious..."  
  
Kenny snorted. "I don't know what it says about us that I've still got wood for you when you're doing Gollum."  
  
"I don't know, mate." She rolled over to give him a kiss. "You've also got morning breath."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeh." She kissed him again. "Mmmmmm." Her hand reached down to palm the bulge in his boxers. "You want some pussy breath?"  
  
Kenny laughed, and pulled a breast out of her camisole, sucking the nipple hungrily.  
  
Then her phone went off. "Jesus _Fucking_ Christ."  
  
Ali waved her hand and the phone flew from the headboard shelf into her hand. She recognized the number - it was her boss, Murdock. She had to take it. "What." She rubbed her dreadlocks.  
  
"Good morning, sunshine."  
  
"Yeh. What."  
  
"I got a gig for ya." Alinta Jonsson was a roadtrain driver for Apollyon Enterprises; she'd been with the company for eight years.  
  
"Mkay. How soon do I need to drive out? Today's my kids' birthday." She had a twin son and daughter who were turning six today.  
  
"Tomorrow."  
  
That was still too soon for her liking, but that was part of her contract - 24 hours notice. Sometimes she got more, usually she got more. Not this time. "Where am I going?"  
  
"Uluru."  
  
"You've _got_ to be shitting me. Fucking _Uluru_? What am I picking up?"  
  
"It's not what, but who. Three cunts. It's Protocol Delta."  
  
That was code for No Questions Asked, No Record Given. She had exactly four of those assignments in eight years. She was not allowed to discuss the particulars of the job with anyone, not even her own partner, only her boss, and there was a certain way to go about handling the information, with code phrases and the like.  
  
At least Uluru was only a seventeen-hour drive one-way from Adelaide, at optimum traffic - she'd had longer assignments - but it was still going to take her away for a bit. "Where am I driving them to?"  
  
"Sydney."  
  
That was a significantly longer drive than Uluru back to Adelaide. "Fuck." She would be _very_ well-paid for this, but...  
  
"You got a pen and paper handy, luv?"  
  
"Yeh, let me..." Ali waved her hand and the bedtable drawer opened; a pen and pad flew out as she sat up, rubbing her face. "OK, ready to write it down."  
  
Kenny was in the bathroom, presumably relieving himself. When he came out he waved his hand and a clean Princess Peach T-shirt that had been folded on top of the dresser flew over his arm, which he pulled on. Ali got off the phone and gave Kenny an apologetic look, but he already knew.  
  
"You have a job."  
  
Ali nodded.  
  
Ali was the primary breadwinner, driving on-call for Apollyon Enterprises. Most of her jobs were short, a few hours of driving things from one place to the other. Once in a great while she had longer assignments and those typically paid very well. Kenny Kim, a Korean-American in his late thirties who had moved to Australia twelve years ago, was a freelance photographer, making less money, and for the last six years he'd been primary caregiver of their children, Metallica and Megadeth Kim-Jonsson.  
  
Once they were dressed, they went to the twins' room and started singing "Happy Birthday". Which turned into Kenny and Ali trying to sing it in the death metal style for a second round, growling and headbanging - Kenny played air guitar - while the kids also headbanged, whipping around their matching mullets, and threw the horns.  
  
"I don't want a happy birthday," Megadeth said, folding his arms. "I want a..." He roared, "BRUTAL BIRTHDAYYYYYY."  
  
  
_  
  
Unfortunately, a brutal birthday - whatever that even meant - was not what their classmates' mums would approve of. The party started at noon - they'd bought a cake instead of baking one, though Ali made plates of fairy bread for the kids, and Kenny heated up appetizers he'd been making last night for the kids and adults. The party was held in the backyard, with a neon wallaby piñata hanging from the clothesline.  
  
As the kids munched on fairy bread, Ali stole a slice, a comfort snack associated with happy memories from childhood, though she tended to only eat it now as an adult under stress. One of the mums, a late-thirties woman with a bleach blonde bob named Karen, looked very uncomfortable, like she wanted to be anywhere but there, and Ali wondered if it was just the loudness of the kids or if it was something else.  
  
Finally "something else" came to the woodwork. "Um, I don't mean to be rude, but..."  
  
_Here it fucking goes._ Over twenty-seven years, Ali had learned pretty much every time someone started a sentence with "I don't mean to be rude, but", they were absolutely going to follow it up with being rude. Ali shoved the rest of the fairy bread slice in her mouth and folded her arms, waiting for it.  
  
"What are they?"  
  
"What do you mean, what are they." Ali raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Well, I mean..."  
  
"They're human." Though her father claimed he had "elf blood" on occasion, usually when he'd had a few.  
  
"I was just curious because -"  
  
"Because they don't look white? They're a quarter white. I've got an Icelandic father and Aborigine mother, and their father over there is Korean." _Not that that's really any of your business._  
  
"I... see." Karen made a face. "You don't think that's odd? Like, not going to cause problems...?"  
  
Flashbacks to the bullying as a biracial child. Ali felt her hackles going up - Karen might be more "polite" than they were but she still knew a bully when she saw one. "You know what? Shut your fucking cunt _face_. Because _that's_ going to cause fucking problems." Ali was ready to throw the plate of fairy bread at her, holding back.  
  
"I beg your pardon..."  
  
"No. I beg _your_ pardon. You think you can come in here, eat my food, breathe my air, disrespect my children? Piss off."  
  
"All right." Karen put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. "Becky. We're going home now."  
  
Becky stamped her feet. "But Mummmmm -"  
  
"I don't know why you need to make your child suffer for your own rude behavior. It's not her fault, she did nowt wrong. I can drive her home," Ali said.  
  
"No, that's... _quite_ all right." Karen started dragging Becky.  
  
Some of the other mums were looking at Ali strangely now, and she didn't even care. She ate another piece of fairy bread, tempted to yell "RAWR" with her mouth full.  
  
Finally one of them approached her, a young, freckled, unruly-blonde-haired hippie named Kylie. "I kind of overheard all that and I'm sorry."  
  
"Ta, yeh, it's unfortunate." Ali nodded.  
  
"I don't know why it matters. And I'd be so proud if I was part Aborigine! Such a fascinating heritage. So _exotic_."  
  
_Oh no. Oh no..._  
  
Kylie smiled. "Can I touch your hair?" She started touching Ali's locks without waiting for permission.  
  
_The fuck._  
  
  
_  
  
  
After the party, Kenny found Ali in the bathroom, crying.  
  
"Babe." He put his arms around her waist, his hands warm with soothing energy.  
  
"It's 20-fucking-20, why are we still dealing with this shit?" Ali took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.  
  
Kenny shrugged.  
  
"As much as I hate going away so soon after our kids' birthday, I guess going out on the road for a bit will help me clear my head." Ali sobbed a little. Though they'd had a lot of love at home, wonderful parents, all the bullying really got to two of her brothers, who were incarcerated now for petty crimes - though they would have honest work waiting for them when they got out of jail, Ali had asked her contacts at Apollyon Enterprises to help them.  
  
Her phone rang. "Swear on me mum, that better not be Murdock again." It wasn't. "Da!"  
  
Böðvar Jónsson's voice came over the other end of the line. "Hey, possum."  
  
Ali choked up again. "Da. How's Mum?"  
  
"Doing good. We're all good here." Sheep bleated in the background. "They say hi."  
  
Ali chuckled. "You're such a goober, Da."  
  
"How's the grandkids? They're six today, já?"  
  
Even though her da had been living in Australia for thirty years and sounded more Aussie than Icelandic, it still slipped into his speech, and he still spoke on the in-breath. "They are. You want me to put them on the phone?"  
  
"Ta."  
  
The kids were overjoyed to hear from their grandpa. Ali could hear him sing "Happy Birthday" in Icelandic over the phone and it made her fuzzy and achingly nostalgic all at once. They chattered back and forth to him about their presents, the wallaby piñata, the cake and the fairy bread.  
  
Finally Metallica and Megadeth gave the phone back to their mum. "Sorry if they talked your ear off -"  
  
"No, it's fine, luv. They have something coming from me in the post but dunno when it'll get there." He lived in a rural part of South Australia, hours away, not somewhere to easily fly to, on a sheep farm. He still didn't have Internet; he rarely used his cell phone.  
  
"I'm sure they'll love it whenever they do."  
  
"Alinta. You should come see us."  
  
Ali felt a pang of guilt. Kenny's parents made a HUGE deal about Christmas, something they were all in for when they moved to California, and that was where they went every year. They already had airline tickets booked.  
  
"Early next year, maybe? Though even then, you know I get short notice sometimes if I have a gig..."  
  
"I know. But it's been awhile, possum. We're not gonna live forever."  
  
Her father was only fifty-four, which wasn't even considered old nowadays, not really, but it rubbed in the guilt anyway. "I'll see what I can do. Maybe get winter paid vacation time bumped up sooner..."  
  
"Já, that'd be nice. Your mum is keen on seeing you. She misses you -"  
  
"I miss all of you." Ali's voice shook. Their warmth and love was badly needed in times like this. "I really wish I had family closer. That I could see family more often. I don't want to have to move back out to the middle of Bumfuck to make that happen -"  
  
Böðvar laughed. "What about the middle of Shithole?"  
  
"Oh my _god_ , Da." Ali snorted. "Da, I can't even with you sometimes."  
  
"I hear Snotrag is pretty nice..."  
  
Ali screamed, facepalming, doubling over with laughter. "Da. _Da._ Da, why are you like this."  
  
"I had the feeling you could use some cheering up."  
  
"A feeling, or _a feeling_?"  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
Ali nodded. "Yeh. I suppose even across the kilometers, you still _know_ when your kids are in distress." And she felt it now, across their bond, the surge of concern and worry from him.  
  
"I don't know what happened, but -"  
  
"Just. You know." Ali made noises. "People drive me batshit sometimes."  
  
"It's why I live out here in the middle of Bumfuck with all these sheep, possum. People drive me batshit and they are very LOUD." He didn't mean their voices; he was a strong telepath and empath. "Sheep are loud too but in a different way. A way that I can manage."  
  
"Yeh. I got a gig tomorrow, didn't wanna but now I kind of need to get away."  
  
"You should take a detour, depending on where you're going."  
  
"I really can't." Protocol Delta allowed for none of that except pre-approved rest stops and even then there were strict rules about them. "I'm sorry about that." As soon as it came out of her mouth... _Oh no. Oh god._  
  
"Hi sorry about that -"  
  
"OK, you know, I'm hanging up now, Da."  
  
"Hi hanging up now, Da -"  
  
"I love you. Talk-to-you-when-I-get-back-we'll-work-out-some-visit-details-OK-bye."  
  
"Love you, possum -"  
  
Ali hit End.  
  
When Kenny came back in the room he found Ali collapsed in a gigglefit.  
  
"Why are our parents such fucking goobers?" Ali wheezed.  
  
"God, I think if Mom and Dad met Böðvar and Medika that would be the end of the world or something."  
  
"Luv, I think we already had the end of the world, couple months ago, if the news reports are to be believed." Ali shook her head and sat up.  
  
"OK, so like... the super-mega-final-boss-battle-for-real-this-time-end-of-the-world."  
  
"Kenny, you're a fucking goober too."  
  
"Yup." Kenny gave her a kiss.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Ali spent a long time hugging Kenny, Metallica, and Megadeth, before she got in her car and drove to the warehouse, where her rig awaited.  
  
"Three cunts, coming right up." She put on the stereo as she started maneuvering out of the parking lot. She smiled as Ronnie James Dio's voice came blaring out the speakers.  
  
_It's a crazy world we live in  
And I'm leaving it today  
For another institution  
Where crazy people play  
Every time I climb the mountain  
And it turned into a hill  
I promised me that I'd move on  
And I will  
  
I, I, good for nothing  
Going nowhere, so they say  
Hey  
  
Someone, give me blessings  
For they say that I have sinned  
That's when I crawl inside myself  
And ride into the wind  
  
On strange highways  
On strange highways_

She felt a frisson down her spine, that feeling she tended to get before something big was about to happen, some sort of major change. _I wonder what's out there._

**Author's Note:**

> Ali has the surname Jonsson instead of the patronymic Böðvarsdóttir because her parents decided they didn't want to cause problems with Australian schools, etc. Her father's patronymic was also anglicized from Jónsson to Jonsson as her surname.
> 
> Böðvar Jónsson is Brynhildur and Birgitta's younger brother, and is mentioned very briefly in _Chains of Eternity_ as having moved to Australia. Katrín and Einar didn't want him contacting Sören et al because of his marriage to an Aborigine; Sören has no idea he even has maternal cousins as of _Chains of Eternity_ and _Flames of Eternity_.
> 
> As those who have read _Chains_ will know, Brynhildur, Birgitta and Böðvar are blood descendants of Maglor via Maglor's son Tindómion, who lived in Iceland for a time and was burned as a witch in the 1600s. ;n;


End file.
